AC/DC the only Australians to make Top 500 list ...

It's as official as it is shocking: the only Australian band to record an album of worldwide importance is AC/DC.

That's the summary of experts rating the top 500 albums ever recorded in the February edition of rock bible Rolling Stone.

A panel that included the editors of the US edition of the magazine and music identities including Britney Spears, Beck and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers ranked AC/DC's Back In Black at No. 73, while the band's 1979 opus Highway To Hell came in at 199.

That's it for the Antipodes. No Saints. No Nick Cave, Paul Kelly, or Midnight Oil. No Easybeats or the Church made it into the exalted 500.

Nor even a sniff of several New Zealand bands we occasionally like to pretend are our own.

Before the lynching party is assembled, it should be noted that the panel of about 300 consisted of players in the American music scene.

But fans and promoters of local music say it's typical of the treatment Australian music gets at the hands of the American music machine.

According to Mushroom records founder Michael Gudinski, Americans don't look beyond their borders for their music.

"One of my greatest frustrations is the limited success in America of Australian music," Gudinski said. "You'd have to say in the top 100 there should be Midnight Oil, INXS, Skyhooks, Paul Kelly and the Saints.

"But on the whole Americans love Americans; look at their books and their art and their music."

Robbie Buck - host of Australian music show Home and Hosed on the ABC's youth radio station Triple J - said on an objective reading an Australian album should have shooed it into the top 50 of albums worldwide.

Punk pioneers the Saints easily made Buck's top 50 with their groundbreaking album I'm Stranded, along with the Easybeats' Friday On My Mind, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Let Love In, Sex by the Necks and the Underground Lovers' elliptical Dream It Down.

While the Bee Gees failed to chart in their own right, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which they dominated with hits such as Stayin' Alive and Night Fever, reached 131. (The soundtrack featured other artists such as Yvonne Elliman with If I Can't Have You and Trammps's Disco Inferno).

And to their credit, Rolling Stone said AC/DC's Back in Black "set a new sonic high tide mark for how hard rock'n'roll should sound".

These famous faces were ignored.

Swedish popsters Abba, who were taken to the collective Australian bosoms before the rest of the world warmed to their disco tunes, ranked 180 for The Definitive Collection.

So which albums did rate in the top 500? The Beatles unsurprisingly took line honours with Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, along with third (Revolver), fifth (Rubber Soul) and 10th (The White Album).

The Beach Boys snatched second place from the Liverpudlian hegemony with Pet Sounds, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited took fourth, and Marvin Gaye's soulful What's Going On took sixth.

Seventh and eight place belonged to the Brits - respectively, the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street and the Clash's London Calling.

The Beatles were the most-represented band with 11 entries, followed by Bob Dylan with 10, the Rolling Stones with 10 and Bruce Springsteen with eight albums.

The 1970s were the most popular decade, claiming 190 of the 500 albums.